


Partners in Crime

by ljs



Series: Investigations and Acquisitions [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic goes AU after the Season 7 BtVS episode "Showtime" and the prequel fic "Profit and Lace." Although it's AU, it contains elements through the BtVS series finale and the AtS Season 4 finale "Home."</p><p>It also contains story elements and characters from the BBC series "Spooks," known as "MI-5" in the U.S.</p><p>After the fall of Sunnydale, Giles and Anya leave the Scoobies and the new Watchers Council in Cleveland, and move to London to build their own life together as well as their own business. However, fate and MI5 have different plans for them.</p><p>A comedy of manners, romance, and domesticity, of demons and spies, and of the importance of classic British detective fiction.</p><p>Acknowledgements: Agatha Christie, Patti Smith.</p><p>(Written in 2003-2004.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

With a pre-moistened cloth she’d brought for this occasion, Anya wiped off the dead traces of her makeup. Result: one clean but exhausted face looking back at her from the weirdly lit bathroom mirror. She scrutinized her reflection closely.

Yes, just as she suspected. Jet-lag might not be as stomach-clenchingly difficult as interdimensional teleportation-lag, but it was nevertheless hell on a woman’s pores.

Ignoring the traditional icky airport-bathroom smells of cleanser and too many visitors, she dug into her makeup bag for her moisturizing foundation. Although Rupert would be pacing the hallway outside, expecting her to hurry so they could make it through the Heathrow Airport Passport Control and Baggage Reclaim, he could simply wait a little longer. The trip to see their new house could wait. She had the bathroom to herself, and she wanted to feel pretty for this life-changing moment.

She unscrewed the cap on the tube, squeezed out a little on her finger. The released liquid made a hiss –

 _Too many, too many, all hissing down the Sunnydale High hallway. Anya pushed Andrew behind her and lifted her sword to face the demon-tide._

 _Then she struck the first blow._

 _Teeth and claws and there, she got one, but there were more and more coming. Too many, too many, all hissing. She got turned around somehow, couldn’t see. She fought blind, she fought badly._

 _She could hear, though. She could hear her breathing, hear growls and cries and Andrew-whimpers._

 _She heard something else too, too late, too late – another hiss, a weapon coming from behind. It lifted the hair on the back of her neck._

 _And then a blow was struck, from – where? who? – from Rupert, who materialised with a sword in his hand, spinning her out of the way and then lunging forward._

 _She heard the scream of the creature as it lost its head. As she would have lost hers if he hadn’t been there._

 _"Come on, darling. Time to retreat," he said, locking onto her free hand. "Keep your sword up."_

 _She heard Andrew scurrying behind them as Rupert pulled her to safety, to the light._

With a steady hand, she applied the foundation to her skin, smoothing it evenly. Really, if she got shaky every time she had a painful sense-memory of the Last Stand at Sunnydale High, she’d be a quivering and unattractive mess. She wouldn’t allow that to happen; in fact, she’d been practising Serenity Right the Hell Now during the whole past month in Cleveland.

What next. A little mascara, a little eyeliner – but only a little, to counteract an unfortunate tendency toward jet-lag raccoon eyes. As she worked, she opened her eyes wide and tilted her head up, which meant the light burned. Involuntary tears blurred the edges of her vision, hot-white–

 _The blinding sun and her lack of sunglasses weren’t the only reasons she was crying. As she looked into the crater that once had been Sunnydale, she said, "So Spike’s gone?"_

 _"Apparently so," Rupert said for the fifth time. She’d heard him each time, but it still seemed... wrong, somehow. Although Spike had been technically already dead, what with the vampirism._

 _Rupert sighed, tightened his arm around her, dropped his head down on hers. The poor honey was probably thinking about his not entirely well-advised participation in Wood’s plot to kill Spike (who, again, had been technically already dead). Of course Spike tried to kill her first, right there in the middle of the trigger-removal process in the Summers basement, which made Rupert quite understandably flash back to a previous dead girlfriend killed by a hitherto semi-trusted vampire with a soul, and thus the whole deal had been guaranteed to end badly. Frankly, Anya thought Buffy had overreacted. It wasn’t like Wood or Rupert had killed Spike in the end._

 _In the end, something else had. And Buffy must have seen it happen, or why would she be standing frozen at the crater’s edge? Looking at where Spike had gone, ashes to ashes, demon to dust?_

 _Involuntary tears blurred the edges of Anya’s vision, hot-white. It could have been her. It could have been her Rupert. It was sad that it had been Spike._

"Oh, damn it!" she said under her breath, reaching for a tissue. She hadn’t quite gotten the trick of preventing the crying jags. But a dab or two, a blow of the nose, and she was just fine.

No raccoon-action to fix, either. Good job, Anya, she told herself.

Before she could pick up the eyeliner again, however, there was a knock on the bathroom door. "Anya darling? What’s taking so long?"

After dropping her makeup bag into her carry-on, she hurried over and opened the door. "Just calm down, honey, I’ll be ready in a second."

He stood in the doorway, frowning down at her, looking so very tired and cross yet also loving and Rupert-like that she had to reach up and drag his head down to hers. Hmm. He must have brushed his teeth when he’d taken his own bathroom break; she could taste the weird British Airways toothpaste over his own deliciousness.

Then he was kissing back, his lips moving in a way that promised sex and caring and maybe a little consensual roughness, so that she forgot about airline toothpaste and merely enjoyed him.

He pulled away too soon, though. "Come on, darling. Get your things and let’s go. We need to pick up the car –"

"Back, back," she said, forcing him to return to her lips.

Another kiss, longer and deeper, before he said against her mouth, "All right now. Come on."

Her hands slid under his suede jacket, dipping slyly under his jeans. As she cupped his ass, which made him tense all over in an interesting and sexually charged way, she said, "Hey, I’ve got a great idea."

"Before you say anything, the answer is no."

However, he was already bumping against her belly, a slow involuntary roll which meant he could be persuaded. A nibble on his ear, then she whispered, "Oh, honey. Sex right here, right now."

His Rupert-sigh tickled the back of her neck. "Anya, really. We’ve got that appointment to get the keys to the house, and, uh, meet with the solicitors – Christ, don’t do that! – and we should get the hire car we reserved – ohhh God. Right. The, er, the first exit off the M4 and the back seat, darling, what do you say?"

"I say I’m not good at waiting."

"Anya, please. We’re in a women’s toilet, for fuck’s sake –"

She raised up on her toes and ground against him in just the way she knew he adored. Another heavy sigh, then he uttered the second most treasured combination of words that any woman who was in love with Rupert Giles could hear: "Oh, sod it." Which meant his finely honed brain had temporarily disengaged, and the bad boy he usually repressed so well was at the helm. Or steering wheel. Or cockpit. Or – she really wasn’t good with metaphors, she decided.

However, word choice didn’t matter, because he was in charge now. With one hand still holding his carry-on, he wrapped the other around her waist and started walking her backward to the last stall in the bathroom, nuzzling at her all the way. She encouraged his efforts with little moans and the judicious use of her hands on his erection.

He kicked her carry-on into the stall first, then threw his on top of it. Against her neck, he said, "Anything breakable in your bag?"

"No, not really–"

"Good." Then he lifted her on top of both carry-ons, which position put her almost at his eye-level. At almost the proper angle for sex.

"Honey," she said, her hands slipping back to his nicely shaped bottom, "you are a genius."

He was too busy closing the stall door behind him to answer her. Then he was there, with hands and lips and concentrated bad-boy attention, and she needed to unbutton his jeans which would be difficult as he was very hard indeed, and – what had Rupert said so eloquently? Ohhh God.

His hands pinched at her nipples until she cried out in his ear, until she could feel the fresh lingerie she’d just put on dampen. She’d have said as much, but she was too busy playing with that lovely hardness, her fingers passing over and over and over – then, a shivering sigh in her ear, he unsnapped her jeans and slid his finger unerringly to her. A stroke, a dive into her wetness, another stroke, and another.

Ohhh God. Yes. That.

Their jeans and his boxers hit the floor at the same time ( the newly cleaned floor, luckily, as her three working brain cells noted). After he ripped her underwear – one of his more expensive hobbies – he lifted her up just a bit higher. She opened her legs, slid them up and around his waist, and arched back against the quite cold tile wall.

He was inside and moving before she could breathe.

This being by definition what she believed was called "a quickie," he didn’t waste any time on finesse. Just Rupert hitting every sweet spot she had, over and over, delicious, slippery, right there right there right there. Yes, that, yes – ohh God.

Because he was a gentleman, he let her go first, but only just. A moan against her neck, hot exhalation against moist skin that made her shiver even more, then he came with a jolt. His pulse started a second, smaller wave for her. As she enjoyed the last little ripples, he whispered, "Love you, darling." This of course was the most treasured combination of words any woman in love with Rupert Giles could hear.

They stayed together, connected, until she could feel his legs start to shake. "Love you too. Now let me down," she whispered.

Although it wasn’t particularly graceful, he managed to pull out and then get her on her feet. She wobbled a bit, what with being perched on two suitcases and having not quite recovered from a very fine orgasm, but she managed to stay upright. He smiled at her, kissed her behind her ear, then said, "Right. Now let’s go through Passport Control and get our bags and –"

"Shouldn’t we clean ourselves up first?" As she handed him some toilet paper, however, she heard the bathroom door open and what appeared to be a small flock of touristy sheep, all bleating and baa-ing about the long flight.

"Oh God, oh God," he said under his breath, leaning his forehead on hers.

There was definite squeaking and then a halt, which made her look past him. Tiny child shoes had stopped just outside their stall, then a tiny child voice piped, "Mommy, there’s lots of clothes and too many feet in here."

A woman’s shoes joined the child’s, and there came an adult intake of breath and a quite different squeak. "Let’s find another bathroom, little one," the mother said, as she pulled the child away. "This one’s kind of funny."

But that didn’t mean they were safe. The whole unit of doors rattled when another woman shut herself into a stall not too far away, and Anya could hear someone else begin a long and painfully uninteresting anecdote about the projected walk to the Heathrow Express.

With far more dignity than could have been expected, Rupert bent down and collected his clothing from around his ankles. Then he did the same for her. Taking her cue from him, she put herself together, tidied them both as best she could.

"So, Tiffany, what d’ya think about those English men? Aren’t they supposed to be cold and reserved?" the Heathrow-Express voice said, boldly advancing a new topic.

"That’s what I heard, Debbie. Must be true," said the woman in the other stall.

"Except that Colin Firth. He seems pretty hot."

"Or Jude Law. But that’s only two of them. So I don’t think we can expect any flings on this vacation. We probably should have gone to Greece or one of those hot-blooded countries. Or Italy, that’s where Colin Firth lives."

Anya finished patting Rupert’s hair into some kind of order, then checked that his belt was done up. "There," she whispered. "Now just think, honey, it could be worse. Could be an apocalypse."

"Right, darling. Thank you for the perspective," he whispered back. With a shudder of soul-deep embarrassment but a brave smile, he picked up his bag and opened the stall door. He said, "Er, hello. Yes. Well, um, enjoy your stay," to a sudden, profound silence.

The bathroom door was already swinging shut behind him when she made it out of the stall with her own bag. The Heathrow-Express woman, smudged red mouth hanging open like one of the less attractive types of stuffed dead fish, stared at the door, then at her.

And Anya said kindly, "I have to inform you, I’m sorry, but your premise about Englishmen is false. However, you can’t have mine."

She cast one more glance in the mirror – gosh, good sex in a Heathrow Airport bathroom did wonders for a jet-lagged woman’s complexion, better than any makeup – then went out in the English morning to start her new life with her Rupert.

***

One more box of books to unload. That made, er, thirty-two for home, not counting the twenty-five he’d hauled to their new office to serve as their work reference material.

Perhaps something could be said for the digital revolution, after all. Fewer bloody boxes.

Hunching his shoulders against the summer afternoon mist, Giles opened the boot of his and Anya’s new (well, used) Saab and wrestled the last one out. Juggling it, he managed to shut the boot, open the gate which had unaccountably closed, and make it up the gravelled walk to their new house –

The Islington house which had been his cousin Martin Giles’s, before the man had been lost in the explosion that levelled the Council of Watchers’s headquarters. There was some slight irony in a Council failure inheriting the property of a man who had been the quintessential Watcher, he thought. However, as Anya so cogently put it, there was also a hell of a lot of property value involved. He’d just focus on that and on her, and try to ignore the guilt.

As he went through the open front door into the small entry hall, he took a deep breath. The house smelled different now. Not that he had been in the habit of visiting weird Cousin Martin, but the few times he had done, the place had practically exhaled books, damp, dust, and eternally wet wool – just like Martin himself, who had been an archivist in the English Prophecies division. A man who’d lived alone, set into his white stucco shell like a peculiarly bookish crab.

Giles shouldered shut the door and breathed in again; he could just make out sage and the candles Anya kept burning, a hint of her citrus perfume, and the scent-shadow of the fresh paint the two of them had spent the past fortnight rolling, dabbing, and sponging onto the walls, like deranged refugees from Changing Rooms. Dear God, but Anya and paint effects were a sodding dangerous combination.

However, he now always would have a happy memory whenever he thought of dust sheets and late afternoon: flashes of her pale skin reddening wherever he stroked the dry ends of his most expensive brush, caressing the curves of her breasts and down her flat belly and down, down; her pleasure-cries like bells clamoring in the far distance; his ripped-off shirt buttons spinning into the tray of Heritage Crimson Fire as her hands pulled him to join her.

No more damp, no more dust, no more wet wool. Without Anya, he too could have so easily become a man who’d forever lived in his shell.

Before going upstairs he kicked off his shoes, and as he went he touched down as lightly as possible on each step. After they’d gotten back from Bath that morning with the last load from his old flat, she had plunged into errands, although she wouldn’t tell him what exactly was causing her to run around like a madwoman. In any event, she deserved a little nap.

The door to their bedroom was open, and as he passed, he glanced inside. She lay on her back, arms out and head tipped to the side, washed in gold from a bedside lamp she’d left on –

 _She lay on the concrete floor of the Summers cellar, arms out and head tipped to the side, as a game-faced Spike attacked again. Giles tried to stop it, to rescue her, but Buffy was there first to pull Spike away._

 _"Anya," Giles said, dropping down beside her, barely registering the pain in his knees. "Can you hear me, darling?" He fought down the memory of a dead woman laid on his bed, of a soaring aria and spilled liquor and death-blooming flowers, and touched his living woman’s face as gently as he could. He traced around the wounds on her forehead and cheekbone, careful not to touch her hurts._

 _"Rupert?" Her voice was small, the faintest of chimes._

 _"I’m here. I’ve got you." He eased his hand under her head so that she didn’t have to rest it on the concrete. Didn’t matter if his hand was scraped raw by the floor. Didn’t matter if he hurt. This time he wouldn’t be too late._

 _Behind him Spike said something he couldn’t hear, then Buffy’s voice came clearly: "Oh, Anya’ll be okay. She’s tough."_

 _This time he wouldn’t be too late, he thought once more. He couldn’t go through that again._

 _And in the madness and failure of the night that followed, at least he did tell Anya for the first time that he loved her._

She cat-stretched in her sleep, rolling over to burrow her face into his pillow. She’d bloody better not drool on it, he thought, and went on into the room next door.

As he let the box fall onto the battered sofa that took pride of place in the study, he looked around at the space he loved second-best in their new home (after their bedroom, of course). He and Anya had chosen a rich scarlet to brighten the walls, and she’d hung colourful sari material at the windows, just as she’d seen on some sodding decorating programme. The only pieces of furniture his father had left him, the leather sofa and chairs and a fine Arts and Crafts desk, were scattered around the room. Best of all, old Martin had installed floor-to-ceiling bookcases along one long wall, which Giles had almost managed to fill. One shelf remained, ready for one final box.

He’d left this one until last for a reason. It contained his Watcher diaries: of course the contents had been scanned into the new Council database, but he’d talked Robson into letting him keep the originals.

He plucked the first volume out of the box, turned it over in his hand. Council of Watchers was stamped in tiny Gothic letters on the spine. Rupert Giles, once a stalwart member of the Council, but no longer –

 _"Watcher Council 2.0 life not working out for you, huh, Giles? Heading back to the jolly olde homeland?" Buffy’s question was wind-tossed over her shoulder. She had turned to look at Lake Erie, not at him. Robson had chosen a lovely spot for the new Council headquarters, right across from the water._

 _He had to squint against the harsh afternoon sun and the glare off the lake, trying to keep her in focus. "I beg your pardon?"_

 _"I know what it looks like when you’re getting ready to leave. It looks kinda like now."_

 _"Buffy..." He fought to keep his arms still at his sides, neither to reach out to her, nor to wrap himself in yet another failure. "Are you saying you don’t think my leaving’s a good idea?"_

 _"No. It is." At that, she did turn, although the angled light prevented him from seeing her face clearly. "You’re taking Anya, right?"_

 _"She’ll go with me when I go, yes."_

 _"Uh-huh. Well, that’s cool. It’ll be easier for Xander if you two aren’t throwing your whatever in his face all the time. And Willow’s good now, better than good. She doesn’t really need a keeper."_

 _"Yes, she’s in control of her power, she understands it. And of course you don’t need me." He’d said it before, the first time he’d gone. The words burned on his tongue now as they had done then._

 _She just looked at him. Still the Slayer despite the many others now Called, but with any and all prophesied ‘instability’ gone. And she was silent._

 _But then she’d already said the crucial words that horrible night Anya had been hurt: ‘You’ve lost it, Giles; you’re not a real Watcher any more. You can’t teach me anything.’ They didn’t need to be spoken again._

 _Behind her the lake shimmered intensely and perfectly blue, marred only by whitecaps kicked up by the previous night’s storm. He said, "Might I ask you something? Just something I’ve been wondering about."_

 _"Sure."_

 _"That last day in Sunnydale, why did you send Anya in with Andrew? Your two least skilled fighters on the same team, covering the same area – it didn’t make battle-sense to me."_

 _"You didn’t say anything then."_

 _"No. I’d done with questioning your decisions."_

 _"Except for now, right?" A hint of the old Buffy, a bubble of laughter before it popped. She said slowly, "Because it wasn’t an important point to defend, and if they fell, they weren’t... it wouldn’t... I was thinking of the mission, Giles. Just like you taught me."_

 _The knowledge burned, just as his eyes burned with the light off the water, but he kept himself still and focussed. After waiting for a response he couldn’t give, she said, "Turn about is fair play, right, British Guy? That same day, in the middle of everything, you left Wood and your mission, so you could go pull Anya and Andrew out of there. What was that about?"_

 _Sun reflected pain: light off the water, light off the desert, remembered light off a hell-burnt crater in the ground. "I thought that the world was ending, Buffy. And I decided that if it was, the last thing Anya was going to see was me protecting her. Just as you taught *me*."_

 _Not waiting for a response she couldn’t give, he turned and walked away._

 _When he and Anya left two weeks later, only Willow, Dawn, and Andrew saw them off. Buffy and Xander were unavoidably detained elsewhere._

He put the journal on the shelf, arranging it just so, then bent to get the next one. And the next. And the next. It only took him ten minutes to store away those six years of his life.

He looked at the empty box for a minute, then pushed at it until it fell off the couch and softly thumped on Cousin Martin’s threadbare Aubusson. Of course he should haul the box down to the rubbish bin. Or, better, he could sneak out to the weedy back garden and have a cigarette, despite the mist. Anya surely wouldn’t notice, since she was sleeping –

From downstairs came a shatteringly loud knock on the door. From their bedroom came Anya’s shouted "I’ll get it, honey, I’m expecting something" and her equally loud footsteps going down the stairs.

Not sleeping any longer, then.

After using one socked foot to spin the book box into a corner, he went over to his old stereo system. Before Anya’s nap he’d been listening to one of his favourite albums, and he rather thought he’d hear it one more time through. Carefully he took the LP out of its protective vinyl sleeve, placed it on the turntable, and cued up the first song.

"'Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,'" Patti Smith sang over the opening notes of the piano, and despite the words, he smiled. Yeah, that was the stuff. Good tune for a grey day.

Thunder rolled back up the stairs, and Anya appeared at the doorway, a small box of her own in her hands. She announced, "Okay, I’ve just about had it with that harsh and aggressive music you so unexpectedly like. I get to listen to Dusty in Memphis next, it’s only fair."

"Um-hm," he said neutrally. "What did you get delivered, darling?"

"Sit on the couch, please."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sit on the couch, and I’ll show you." When dutifully he did as he was told, she leapt to join him, making the leather creak with the force of her landing. "Budge over, honey," she said, already practically in his lap – and then quite actually in his lap. With ease borne of six months with her, he adjusted himself to her weight, while she pulled off the loose lid and tossed it over on top of his book box.

Resting his chin on her shoulder, he looked at her treasure. Correction, their treasure: hundreds of their new business cards, the black letters pressed into cream linen. She picked up one of them, and he adjusted his glasses to see it better, muttering, "Could you please hold it a little further away? And if you say one word about bifocals, you, er, won’t be happy with the result."

"Listen, Mr. Cranky Man, it doesn’t matter to me if you need to hold your reading material across the street so you can see it," she said cheerfully. "But aren’t they great?"

He took the card from her hand, angling it so that the light reflected off its surface. **Giles and Jenkins, Partners in Investigations and Acquisitions** scrolled across it in bold, followed by the motto **The extraordinary, found and explained. Reasonable rates.** Smaller script indicated the address, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of their new Bloomsbury office. "They’re bloody brilliant, is what they are."

"I know!" she said, her wriggle of joy setting everything into dangerous motion. It took their joint efforts to catch the cards before the box slid off her lap, and then he took the precaution of putting it on the floor. She threw one arm around his neck and beamed at him. "It feels just right to be officially back in business together."

"Yes, it does," he said, tipping her onto her back, easing her onto the cushions and covering her. Their combined weights made the leather creak again.

"And we’ll start going into the office tomorrow, right? Start our new work the proper way, with punctuality and enthusiasm?" She took off his glasses and put them on the side table. Then she threw out one arm aimlessly, turning her head to the side to facilitate his attention.

"Absolutely. I feel quite enthusiastic already," he murmured, his mouth now buried in the citrus-sharp hollow of her throat. When she sighed, he brought the card up, brushed it against the corners of her mouth. The bend of paper, the hush of breath, the creak of the sofa, all were counterpoint to their Patti Smith soundtrack.

"Honey, each card costs 15p," she whispered against the paper, even as she arched up higher and harder, her body bowed into his. "You’re wasting a valuable business resource here."

"Better put it to good use, then." He slid over so that he could reach her breasts. Lightly but unerringly, he flicked the edge of the card across one nipple, then the other, then the first again. Then he repeated the process. Over her happy little gasps, he said, "What have we here? Something extraordinary indeed. I believe, er, investigation is called for...."

"Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A," the song rang out, as he unbuttoned her shirt and took one breast into his mouth, as Anya burrowed a hand in his hair and shifted to cradle his hips. The throb of blood, the movement of tongue and lips on such deliciousness, the creak of the sofa.

Yes, he’d just concentrate on her and their home and business, ignore the guilt. And this new life would be glorious indeed.

***

A misty midday at work, and Anya was bored. Bored, bored, bored. She tapped her nails against the stapler and tried very hard not to brood.

Rupert, the stupid man, was of course as happy as a Mikh demon-dwarf merchant receiving a half-price shipment of pickled entrails. She spun her desk chair around to look at him through the open door. Wearing one of his beautiful suits from the Magic Box days, he sat at the long oak table in their new conference room/library, buried in a stack of old books and scribbling away madly. He had scored two nice commissions in their first week and a half, both from people who had known him in his mysterious Watcher career, the time he wouldn’t talk about: a report to be done on the pixies infesting a St. James gentlemen’s club (with accompanying recommendations for disposal or removal), and a preliminary report on a ghoul seen on the high street in Peckham.

Of course, they’d done the legwork together for those jobs – an afternoon walk-through of the musty, it’s-a-man’s-world-after-all club and some pixie-battling, much like the Kizzyoit deal of their first night together; an evening out at a Peckham pub, then a little spirit-observation in an adjacent alley. But now it was over to Rupert for the final research and report-writing. She’d be able to help him transfer his hand-written notes to actual word-processed brilliance, but that wouldn’t be for a day or so.

Thus, that morning while he worked, she had accomplished the following: long, chatty e-mails received from, and replies sent to, Dawn and Andrew; obsessive checking of her stocks, which were doing well, especially the magic-and-technology sector; a scan of E-Bay competitors offering herbs, candles and potions, none of whom had anything like the quality and quantity she offered; another rearrangement of their outer-office client chairs to better reflect prosperity and good energy; fifty-two games of computer solitaire. Oh, and she had concocted a secret plan to alleviate boredom and increase business as well.

Now, as it was almost lunchtime, she could put the plan into action, including the 'still a secret' part.

Going to the conference-room doorway, she rested her hands against the wooden frame, smiled at him. "Almost time to eat, Rupert."

"Um-hm." He didn’t look up from his notes.

"I’ll go get it and bring it back, if you want. I was thinking Indian so you could have your favourite tikka masala, but I could be convinced to get sandwiches."

"Um-hm." He flipped a page, messed with his glasses so he could see the illustration more clearly, then started writing again.

"But I have an errand or two to run first, is that okay? It might take me an hour or so."

"Um-hm."

"Before any of that, however, I think I’ll masturbate in the front office, using the office-supply item of my choice as an aid to pleasure."

"Um-hm." He flipped another page, ran his index finger down to a particular passage. "Just give me three minutes to finish this paragraph, and I’ll be there with the digital camera to record the, er, hot pornographic action."

When she threw a convenient stack of Post-it notes at his head, he barely managed to duck. Smiling, he said, "Anya, I was listening. I just need to get this draft done today. The sooner done, the sooner invoiced."

"Rupert, that’s a very good point." She smiled back at him. "So it’s okay if I go off for an hour of two?"

"Of course, darling. And I think I’d like a vindaloo for lunch, please. Lamb, preferably."

"You got it," she said. "Or you’ll get it in an hour or so." Walking over to him, she leaned down for a long, mint-tea-flavoured kiss. Then she whispered against his cheek, "If you finish your draft early, we can still do the whole camera-and-the-er-hot-pornographic-action activity before we go home tonight."

"Oh for fuck’s sake. Just go." But he grinned as he said it, and his hand lingered on her bottom even as he pushed her away.

As she left the room, she said, " Now, my absence means you’ll have to answer the phones, you know, if you think you can do that and write at the same– "

"Thank you, Anya, I’m capable of answering the bloody phone," he snapped, even as he turned his attention back to his papers. Yep, his aggravation continued to arouse her in some inexplicable way, and she kind of thought it always would.

It took only a second or two to collect her light jacket and purse on the way. In some sort of perfect justice, the phone began to ring just as she shut the door behind her. But since he said he could do it, she didn’t turn around.

Still smiling, she clattered through the outer hallway, then took the flight of stairs down past the ground-floor art gallery and onto the street. Gilbert Place was quiet, especially on a day like this one. Not the greatest location for retail, but Rupert had gotten a good deal on the office lease, and it wasn’t actually as if they needed walk-up trade for their business.

The weird thing, of course, was that it was only two blocks from the bombed-out rubble of the Council of Watchers building. As she walked in that direction, she thought about poor Rupert’s shudder every time they went by it, his dark moments of silence immediately thereafter. She made a mental note to call Robson and hurry up the New Council in clearing the site, so that something else could be built and her poor man could stop feeling the pain of things he didn’t need to remember.

Making her way through side streets, through mist and traffic, through diesel-and-greasy-food smells and too many pedestrians, she found herself remembering her own previous trips to London. Business trips, of course, several centuries’ worth. Screams of vengeance victims could still haunt her sometimes, when she allowed herself to get quiet and listen to memory. It was useful in small doses to remind herself what she had chosen to give up, what she knew had been wrong.

Only in small doses, however. There were other, more profitable uses for her memory.

Finally, Shaftesbury Avenue. She took a short cut, smiling to herself as she crossed to St Giles High Street – amusing because she was in love with a Giles who couldn’t be further from a saint, which was good because the three saints she actually had met had been tedious people. Then she zipped past the church, toward Charing Cross Road.

On Charing Cross, two doors down from Foyles, the giant bookshop, she found her target: a blue wooden door, not-quite-full-size, set into a brick wall. There was no handle, but she remembered the trick of it. Two raps at the top, two raps at the bottom, and the door swung open. "We don’t open until sunset! Do you know the before-hours password?" a gruff voice shouted.

"Nalph, there is no password," she said. After circling herself and muttering a protection-spell just for safety, which was one of the things Willow had deigned to teach her before the flight from Cleveland, she walked across the threshold into the tiny, crowded and aromatic magic shop.

Demon magic, of course.

"No, not _Nalph_ , it’s pronounced _Nafe_ , as I’ve told you several times before. Anyanka, isn’t it?" The Mikh demon-dwarf, a swarthy blue like most of his tribe, tossed back his indigo dreadlocks and peered at her. "You’re different now, though. You’re...oh dear, oh dear, you’re human." This attitude seemed a little hypocritical, considering that his shop was located in the heart of the human West End and she knew for a fact he served all kinds. But allowances must be made for the Mikh.

"It’s Anya now. Human again, human to stay," she confirmed. "But still demon-friendly. To some demons, that is, peaceable demons."

"I am very much interested in peace," Nalph said piously. After pushing aside his jars of pickled entrails– she had somehow known it would be delivery day and he’d be in a good mood; maybe she was turning psychic – he crossed his claws on the counter and said, "Go ahead, human Anyanka, or as you would have it, Anya. What can I do for you?"

First she pulled out the item she’d prepared for this moment. Then she walked to the large bulletin board that covered one wall. Tapping the display of photos and flyers, advertising various goods and services for the shadowy half-demon market, she said, "Got space for another business card?"

"Perhaps," Nalph said. "And for what purpose would I put such a thing up on my highly exclusive board, screened for my customers’ convenience and purchasing safety?"

Beaming at him in her best Magic-Box-honed way, she said, "Because you care about your customers, and because Giles and Jenkins does not discriminate in its cases, much. Peaceful demons and half-demons are more than welcome to give us a call for help in investigations and acquisitions. That’s what my partner and I do, you see. We investigate problems and acquire items of interest – for a fee charged in British sterling, obviously, although we also will accept Euros."

"Intriguing." The Mikh hopped around the counter on his frog-legs, then held out a claw for her card. She could feel the waves of magic, darker magic than most creatures knew he had – of course she knew, hence the protection-spell – but she could also feel his keen interest. As he perused the card, he said, "And this Giles is your partner? Also human, one imagines."

"Very much human." She swallowed hard, because the next bit could be tricky, but since the truth would out eventually, it was better to control the information-flow oneself. "Um, he was once a Watcher."

The blue claw tightened on the cream, one sharp nail digging into the bold **Acquisitions**. "A Watcher. Enemy to our kind."

"Not a friend to vampires and killer-types, no," she said. "However, a perfectly reasonable man." _Some of the time_ , she silently qualified, and a good test would be when she told him about what she was doing. Another hard swallow, but then, brightly, "We wouldn’t acquire weapons of mass destruction or creatures for ritual sacrifice, you see, but answers to demon-history questions? You bet! A line on that Nri-encrusted cup, last seen in Morocco, that you’ve always wanted? Giles and Jenkins is the firm you want to deal with."

"How long have you and this Giles been in London?" he asked out of nowhere.

"A few weeks."

"Ah, a few weeks. And an ex-Watcher and ex-vengeance demon, together. Intriguing indeed." With a sudden decisive movement, he leapt, higher than Anya could reach, and tacked the card up on the board. Very good placement for casual traffic, she noted. Then he turned and extended a claw. which she took. His eyes had gone so dark that they were almost purple. "Let me wish you the best, Anya now human, but let me tell you that London is changing in many ways, both surface and deep. You need to know that if you wish to prosper."

"I’ll keep that in mind," she said as she shook his claw. It was hot to the touch, which was unusual for a Mikh. Tucking that bit of information away, she said, smiling, "It would be an honour to do business with you, Nalph."

"Only if you pronounce my name correctly," he said, eyes lightening in amusement.

From the back room, hidden by a curtain of glass beads – or rather, she suddenly realized, a curtain of threaded Ihioo babies’s skulls, which was unpleasant any way you looked at it – came a bellowed "Nalph, where is it, where is it, where is it?"

"Go now," Nalph said, all amusement gone. "We shall speak again. And again, best of luck."

She didn’t lose time in getting out of there. That bellow sounded scarily familiar, although she couldn’t place it exactly; damn her memory, she thought.

Once out in the open air, she inhaled the mist and diesel and grease smells, exhaled tension she hadn’t known she’d been carrying. Of course some nerves remained. Now that she’d actually made the first connection to the demon world, she didn’t feel as comfortable with the thought of telling Rupert as she had done before. But no, that was silly. She was a strong woman who understood the proper positioning of a new firm in a crowded marketplace, and he’d just have to deal with it. She hoped.

Okay, she knew he’d be mad. She simply had to trust that it would be a small mad, more like irritation, rather than his real anger which could be either glacial or volcanic. Her Rupert had a nasty temper, more dangerous than any demon’s when it was roused, and since he’d stopped repressing it quite so much –

Now breathe, she told herself. And don’t borrow trouble, Anya, because it’s hell to pay back. Serenity right the hell now.

She found herself in front of Foyles, just as the doors opened and two chattering women came out. After they brushed by her, saying to each other "–new book by George?" and "No, I prefer the classic mysteries," she turned and went inside the huge, cold, maze-like space.

While she was here, she’d just pick up a couple of books, in case the afternoon was as boring as the morning. Or, in case Rupert decided to cut off sex because he was furious with her, she’d at least have something to read.

He could wait a little longer for his vindaloo. He was working, anyhow.

***

Giles looked at his watch for the fifteenth time, got up from his desk chair, and resumed the useless activity of pacing. Where was she, where was she –

But he made himself stop, made himself lean against the front of her desk and cross his arms to keep in the nerves. The unexpected phone call had rattled him so that he couldn’t write any more about the cellarage preferences of pixies. Instead, he’d straightened the conference room and put away the texts he’d been consulting, making the space ready for the hastily arranged meeting. He’d also made his own call to Robson, who not only didn’t know anything but also was rather pissy about being rung so early in the morning. Sodding time zones made everything so complicated, Giles thought.

Actually, his past, and the fact that he’d kept it under wraps, was what made everything so complicated. Oh, bloody hell, he thought he’d left this all behind. Where was she, where was she–

The percussion of heels and the smell of spicy Indian food announced her arrival even before the door opened and she appeared, balancing a sack of food, her purse, and a full bag from Foyles. He didn’t have time to ask about the latter or start his confession, though, for she was saying, "Hi, honey, I have something to tell you, and a relevant passage in a book to read to you."

"Darling, let me get that." He went forward to collect the food sack (which, he saw, also included a bottle of Newcastle Brown and a bottle of Perrier), then said, "Actually, I have something extremely important to tell you, too."

"Great! But me first, because I think we need to get this out of the way." She tossed her purse on her desk, then dug in her Foyles bag for something.

He looked at the food in his hand; no time for lunch, he needed to put this away. As he headed for the conference room, she followed, flipping pages in a paperback. "Okay, Rupert, let me preface what I have to tell you with an apt quotation I just happened to find when browsing in the Mystery section of the bookstore. And what on earth are you doing?"

He stowed the food in their tiny office refrigerator, then stood up. "We don’t have time to eat, Anya, because, er, we got a call...."

"A new job?" she said. "No, you can tell me in a minute. I need to read you this passage from Agatha Christie first, and then explain carefully what I’ve done. I worked out the proper order to this."

"Anya–"

"No, listen. This is how I was feeling this morning." Grabbing his tie with one hand and pulling him closer to her, she read, "‘I wish,’ she said, ‘something would happen.’ Her husband looked up reprovingly. _‘Be careful, Tuppence, this craving for vulgar sensation alarms me.’_ " She threw the book on the table. "See? That’s us."

"I would never be so stuffy as that. Er, wait, that’s not the point –"

"Honey, you so would. But the point is that you’ve been busily working away, while I don’t have anything to do at the moment. I wanted to make something happen for my own job satisfaction."

He pulled his tie free, smoothed it out. "I don’t think I like where you’re going with this. Anyway, I need to tell you – "

His tie was grabbed again, and she dragged him back down, almost to her lips. Brown eyes focussed on his, she said, "Here’s the thing, Rupert. I just placed our business card on display in Nalph’s Mysterious Emporium, The Best for the Discerning Demon or Half-Demon, because I’m attempting to broaden our clientele and find work for myself." She stepped back with a hesitant and adorably irritating smile on her face. He did love her so.

But then what she said actually registered: Nalph’s Mysterious Emporium... oh bugger. Oh sod it. How else could he put it: "I can’t believe you did that. Anya, we’re _fucked_."

Her smile dropped away. "This isn’t exactly the response I expected. What the hell is wrong with you?"

A quick glance at his watch: they’d be here any second, and he didn’t know how to put this. "Right, I’m sorry. Anya, when you left I got a phone call, and we’re going to have visitors shortly, and they, um, relate to what I used to do. To my past." You fool, he told himself, stop bloody stammering and just tell her.

When she wrapped her arms around herself in a gesture of defending against pain, however, he couldn’t help but drag her into his embrace. Burying her face against him, she mumbled, "You’re going to tell me you’re married, aren’t you."

"Dear Lord, no."

"You’re gay?"

"What? No. Although there was the one – no."

"You’re dying of a terminal illness, and I’ll have to nurse you through your tragic final days?"

"Darling, please stop before you lose what’s left of your mind." After forcibly removing her from his suit jacket, he cradled her flushed face in his hands, caressed her cheekbones with his thumbs. As gently as he could, he said, "Listen. Er, I never told you what I did for the Council before I was assigned to Buffy, or in that year after I left Sunnydale. You see, I was never trained for active Slayer duty, still can’t imagine how I was given the job." Of course his spectacular mistakes with Buffy would have been enough to tell anyone that he wasn’t intended for it, he thought, before repressing the familiar acid-burn of guilt. "I, well, I was the Council of Watchers liaison to MI5, in charge of demon affairs."

"You were what?"

From the doorway, a calm, controlled voice said, "He means he was a spy. In fact, he spied on demons." MI5 spymaster Harry Pearce, every bit as round and bullet-headed as ever but sporting a sling on one arm, walked into the conference room. Giles hadn’t even heard him come into the outer office.

He found himself putting Anya behind him, as if to shield her – which was ridiculous, because it wasn’t as if the man would hurt her. Probably. Forcing himself to smile, he said, "Ah, Harry. How are you?"

A brief, awkward handshake, then Harry seated himself at the table, saying, "Oh, fine, fine. Giles, would you introduce me to your, shall we say, colleague?"

Time to remember who he’d been when he’d dealt with these people on a day-to-day basis, what skills were necessary to tread through the vipers’ nest. Summoning up coolness from his past, he said, "I rather think you already know, but nevertheless... Anya, this is Harry Pearce, who works for MI5, one of the British intelligence services. And this is Anya Jenkins, my partner – "

Who chose that moment to explode somewhat belatedly, "You were the _what_ to the _what_ and did _what_?" Judging from her frown and folded arms, if she still owned her powers he’d be crumbled to dust. Or covered in unpleasant, oozing pustules. Or something.

He said, "I was the Council’s liaison to MI5. And yes, I gathered intelligence product on demons. Darling, would you sit down so that we can discuss whatever Harry –" a sharp glance showed that the man was enjoying this far too much – "needs to talk to us about?" He hit the us as hard as he could, although he wasn’t sure for whose benefit.

"You didn’t think I’d want to know you were a spy?" she whispered again, as he pulled a chair out for her and she sat down.

"We’ll discuss it later," he said in her ear. He took his seat next to her, took her hand in his, and then said, "Well, Harry, why did you wish to meet with us?"

Harry leaned back in the chair, calm as he could be. "It came to my attention that you’d returned to England, Giles. You’ve been working on a pixie-infestation? A friend of mine in Six called me last week to let me know."

A friend in Six, MI6 – "Ah, of course. I gather Jools Siviter is a member of the Traditionalists’ Club." He’d have to sharpen his research skills in order to check out these jobs more closely, Giles thought. And he further thought, what a fucking bastard.

"Yes, it was Jools. Although he and I agree on very little, we do agree that if an asset like you is available, we should recruit you back into her Majesty’s service."

"You’re an asset now, Rupert?" Anya said in what she probably thought was an aside.

Harry’s smile widened. "Oh, not just Giles. We’ve done some preliminary vetting of you as well, Ms. Jenkins, and even considering your...unusual history...we certainly feel that you could help our intelligence services in the same capacity."

Giles could hear prison doors slamming all around him, locking him into a past he thought he’d escaped, locking Anya in with him. But he had to try to get out: "Yes. Well, as I no longer work for the Council, Harry –"

"Not an issue. Since the explosion last fall which took so many lives, Giles, the Council of Watchers is no longer a primarily British institution. You’re on your own now, isn’t that right? That’s why we can approach you both, appeal to your sense of English fair play. It’s about the Xet, you see."

Anya’s hand tightened on his so hard that he lost all feeling in two of his fingers. She said, "What about the Xet, Mr. Pearce?"

"Please, call me Harry. And we don’t actually know. The name has been floated to us by our last contact with the demon world, who is sadly no longer with us. We just know it’s bad news."

Giles rather thought so; the legend of the Xet, a vague and half-formed prophecy of a demon uprising that would overthrow humankind in the Thames Valley, had been around since the days of Londinium. "What else have you heard?"

"And what would you need us to do, and how much would you pay us?" Anya said sharply.

"Ah, all excellent questions. For a start, I would ask you to discover who this is." After taking two folded sheets of paper out of his suit jacket pocket, Harry slid the first slip across to them. The name Ian Gold, Lambeth was written on the top. "Our late contact mentioned that there is a man who goes by this name and in this location, who has been recruiting demons. He apparently is running what is in essence a terrorist cell, planning to attack an unspecified target here in London. We’d like you to locate this man, find out what he’s targeted."

"Should we find him, would Special Branch be responsible for taking him out?" Giles asked, even as he stared at the paper. The name teased at him somehow – he should know who he is –

"Of course, " Harry said. "You know that our mission is only the gathering of information, Giles."

Yes indeed, he thought. And he, Rupert Giles, owned every sodding bridge across the Thames and charged a shilling per crossing.

He could feel Anya trembling, even as her grasp on him tightened. To Harry, however, she said coolly, "And our fee, whether or not information is obtained?"

Silently Harry slid the second slip of paper across the table. When Anya pulled it closer to them both, they both started at the amount. MI5 was certainly freer with the pounds than they used to be, Giles thought. Still fighting the inevitable, however, he said, "We’ve just opened our own firm, Harry. I don’t see how it could be closed so soon."

"You’re certainly free to run Giles and Jenkins, just as you’d planned. In fact, it’s an excellent cover. This is simply an extra job, for the good of the country and the happiness of your bank manager," Harry said.

"Do we have a choice?" she said.

"No, not really." Harry pulled out a mobile, then said into it, "Come on in."

Giles could hear the door to the outer office open and footsteps coming toward them, but the lovely, if tired, young woman who appeared in the door wasn’t who he’d expected to see. "Er, then our contact won’t be Tom Quinn?" He’d always liked young Tom, even though the man twitched every time he saw him. Something about him looking like someone else, he remembered.

Harry and the woman exchanged a glance that Giles couldn’t read, before she said, "I’m sorry, but he’s no longer with the service. Hello, I’m Zoe Reynolds."

"Zoe will run your ops and receive your intel. Don’t worry, we won’t make you come to Thames House to report," Harry said. As he stood, ready to leave, Giles and Anya got up too. "I won’t be seeing you two again unless it’s absolutely necessary. But it was lovely to meet you, Ms. Jenkins. Pleasure to see you, Giles." Then he left, faster than one would think he could move. Always foolish to underestimate Harry Pearce.

"So. Not much to go over, really," Zoe said, smiling. "Just a few procedures, a contact number, and –"

"I’ll take the number," Anya said aggressively, stepping in front of him. Which seemed a little odd, actually. "You can expect to hear from me whenever we find anything."

"Oh, well, that’s fine, but I think we’ll need more regular contact." Zoe got a mobile and a slip of paper out of her purse and handed it to Anya. "While you’re on the op I’ll ring you every day on this unit, let’s say, at 1500 hours? And my number is set on the speed-dial, number one. If that fails, call me at the number I’ve given you, and ask for Miss Carter. That also works if you find out any time-sensitive information. Your code names can be– " When her glance went to the book Anya had left on the table, she smiled. "Oh, I always loved those books! We can call you Tommy and Tuppence, if you like. Now, do you have any questions for me?"

"Yes. When do we get paid?" Anya said.

"I see you get to the heart of things. First payment should be in your bank account now," Zoe said. "And I do want to say how much I look forward to working with both of you."

For some reason Anya wouldn’t let him shake Zoe’s hand in farewell. However, they escorted their new handler to the front door, said their goodbyes – then Anya shut the door and threw the lock.

Too late, too late, he thought.

And then his darling girl turned to him and punched him in the shoulder. "You were a damn demon spy for years and years, and you didn’t tell me?"

"Don’t ever hit me again, Anya," he said, catching her hand before she could bring it around again. He could feel anger – at her attitude, at being manipulated by that bastard Pearce, at his sense of replaying an old and despised scene – rising up, threatening to blind him like too much light in a night-creature’s eyes. Even though he was attempting to control it, he said far too loudly, "And don’t you say one bloody word to me about spies or secrecy. You took our card to Nalph’s without asking me, for fuck’s sake!"

Her fists on her hips, she said, "Why is that such a problem, _Giles_?"

The name she hadn’t used for months lasered in, a freeze-burn on his greatest insecurities, but he had to push past that. Had to be very clear for her. "It’s a problem because Nalph was my chief informant when I worked undercover. Well, he knows everyone, doesn’t he? He knows me very well, too, but as David Blackburn, exhibit specialist at the British Museum and weekend dabbler in the occult. My cover, you see. Can you imagine the difficulties if I walk in there now as Rupert Giles?"

"Oh," she said, hands flexing flat, sliding down her sides. He’d made himself clear, then. "Okay. Yes, I understand why you think we’re fucked."

At the sad little note in her voice, he couldn’t help but touch her shoulder, caressing just for a breath. "It’s not good, no. I don’t think we could manage with you as the sole contact with him, even if I felt comfortable with your going into danger alone. And while I do have other sources in the demon world, it will take time to make the connections, and... well, you see."

"Yes, I see." Turning away from him, she went into the conference room. He got there in time to see her heave herself up to sit on the table, kicking off her heels and then sliding back so that her legs dangled over the edge. She didn’t look happy at all.

Well, neither was he. Sighing, he went over to the refrigerator. "I think I want that beer you brought. Would you like your water?"

"No, I want to share your alcoholic beverage," she said, staring at her feet.

After he got the cap off, he brought the bottle back to the table, joined her. After a long pull or two at the ale, he let her have a taste. He lay down, propping himself on his elbows and looking at blank magnolia walls. She drank, then scooted herself over so that she warmed his side. For a minute or two, they passed the bottle between them, drinking, saying nothing.

Then he pushed the bottle aside and lay flat on his back. She was practically on top of him before he could breathe, one arm banding around his middle, one leg thrown over his thighs. Her stockinged foot idly began to stroke his leg, and just as absently she began to unfasten his tie. She said, "I’m trying hard to think outside the box, Rupert, but I don’t feel very brilliant at the moment."

He caught her hand, brought it to his lips, inhaled citrus perfume and her own scent. "No, me either. But don’t worry, darling, we’ll figure something out." One more kiss, then: "By the way, I loathe it when you use that phrase."

"You know what, you’re a stuffy, snobby, cranky man. Who was also a spy and who didn’t tell me and that’s why we’re in this mess," she said. Yet before he could complain, her mouth was on his, and she was kissing him as if he were everything she’d ever wanted. When they had to breathe, but not a second before, she moved a millimetre away and said, "I love you, honey. If we can make it through several apocalypses, we can make it through this."

"Yes, we can." When he pulled her on top of him, she snuggled in. A perfect fit. He kissed her hair, ran his hands up and down her silk-covered back until she all but purred. "Love you too, Anya."

"Mmm." She wriggled closer, sliding his shirt out of his trousers and then her hands underneath the cotton, stroking his chest. "Maybe sex would be a good interim answer to our problems. Make us think better, you know, so we can address the real issues?"

He was already getting hard, just from the touch of her hands lovely sinuous movements she was making against his cock. But he said, in his best stuffy, snobby, cranky voice, "‘Be careful, Tuppence, this craving for vulgar sensation alarms me.’"

"Oh, Tommy!" she said, in perhaps the worst English accent he’d ever heard. Getting her hands in between their bodies, she undid his belt and slipped it off. In her normal voice, she said, "I didn’t have time to get very far in the book. Is there any hot action between Tommy and Tuppence? Like, for example, surprisingly athletic spy-sex on their conference table?"

"No." He crushed her skirt up around her waist, then traced his hands between her thighs, taking the time to unsnap her suspenders. As he probed underneath her lingerie, one finger tickling until he found wetness, he said, "Dame Agatha wasn’t much for the graphic depiction of sexuality, as I recall."

"Well, damn. And oh God, honey, a little higher – oh yes, there, that feels great."

He rolled her over and pressed himself in between her legs. Smiling down at her, he said, "Really, darling, we shouldn’t. I still have that pixie-report to finish, and then we have to find this Ian Gold bloke and earn our fee from her Majesty’s secret service."

"Shut up, Tommy," she said. "We can do all that later. Right now, I need you inside me, no matter what important activities Agatha Christie failed to record."

He reached down and ripped her lingerie. "Whatever you say, Tuppence."


	2. Chapter 2

Hissing, the Tube train swayed back into motion. One stop away from home, and Anya was more than ready to get there and settle in.

She glanced at Rupert, who was sitting beside her with his gaze fixed straight ahead. When she followed his look, the windows on the other side of the carriage reflected the two of them: window-Rupert so tall and distinguished, silver and sex and a frown, and window-Anya, brunette at the moment although she was considering a return to dark blonde, fitting against him perfectly. A matched set, she thought.

Window-Anya laid her head on window-Rupert’s shoulder and put her hand on his leg, smiling at him. Window-he did not smile back; in fact his frown deepened, although real-Rupert’s hand covered hers. Anya didn’t think he was seeing what she saw.

Also, this reflection and self thing was starting to annoy her.

As she linked her fingers with his, she sighed. His state of mind was kind of worrying. After their excellent role-playing sex on the conference table, and their initial discussion of their spy problem over the consequently late and not very good meal – she’d have to remember that cold, congealed lamb vindaloo wasn’t a optimal luncheon choice – he’d gone all quiet.

After disposing of the dead remains of lunch, he’d plunged back into the pixie report, while she confirmed that there was no directory or ex-directory listing of an Ian Gold in Lambeth. Rupert wrote so fast behind his barricade of texts that she’d been able to start typing the report within an hour. Then, while she clicked away, he’d sat down at his desk in the outer office and gotten out his address book.

It was his Watcher address book, the one with practically every name crossed out – the one that always upset him. She made a mental note to transfer the few remaining names to a new book, or possibly a personal digital assistant if she could both talk him into the purchase and force him to learn how to use it.

However, he’d flipped through the marred pages calmly enough, then placed a call. After reaching Roger Wyndam-Pryce – the retired Watcher who’d contacted them for the job at the Traditionalists’ Club – he’d told him that the report would be faxed soon, then asked him a general question about what was known about the Xet prophecy. Although she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to hear what the other man had said. But that was when Rupert started frowning in earnest.

She’d asked him what was going on, of course; he’d just said that Roger Wyndam-Pryce was an old man who knew nothing about anything. Then he’d made two more calls. One was to Miss Harkness of the Devon coven, to whom he’d put the same question as to Wyndam-Pryce, with the same irritating lack of resultant detail; the second was to Willow.

He’d taken the phone into the conference room for that one. Not that Anya minded; she had gotten over her jealousy of Willow a long time ago. Well, "a long time ago" translated as "the minute the plane touched down in England," which meant that she and Rupert were a continent away from the Scoobies and their constant tugs on him.

However, she still had a sympathetic heart-flutter when he came back into their main office, ending his conversation with a soft "Take care of yourself, Willow, and say hello to Buffy for me." He did miss them terribly, although he never admitted it.

She’d smiled at him, said "Everything all right in Cleveland?" He’d passed his hand over her hair, said everything was fine, he’d just wanted to check on a little spell in case they had to revisit the Peckham ghoul. This seemed unlikely, but whatever. She could work on his skills in the sharing of information later.

Their matched-set reflection in front of her changed, disappearing into light as the train began to slow. "Highbury and Islington Station," the mechanized female voice said. "Highbury and Islington Station."

"Come on, darling," Rupert said, with a squeeze of her hand. The frown was gone.

When they walked out of the station into a pink-grey sunset, she realised that it was turning out to be a pleasant night. The mist had finally lifted, leaving behind warmth, people outside of pubs chatting, and the smell of food in the air. Some of the shops along Upper Street were closed already, but – "Honey, do we need to stop and get dinner?"

"Not for me. I’m not very hungry," he said, making the turn into Cobble Lane.

Good enough. She was already thinking about how soon she could return to her Agatha Christie book; she had decided that she could learn from these characters how partnered spies should conduct themselves. Her skim of the first couple of chapters indicated that Tuppence sometimes went out and investigated things herself in a safe and practical manner, which seemed to work well.

As they walked up to their big white house, she found herself thinking that not only did it look like a real home, it felt like one. A lamp in their living room window, timed to come on at dusk, shone brightly onto their small patch of front garden. They were going to need to weed soon. "Rupert, when are you going to start working on the yard?"

"Never," he said, opening the front gate for her. "I kill anything that’s green – remember the plants by my apartment door in Sunnydale?"

"Oh, yes. Then you’re not allowed to touch any of the herbs that I’ve started growing for commercial purposes in the back."

"All right, that was easy enough." He got his keys out of his pocket, unlocked their door. "After you."

"Are you saying you’re a liar, and you can garden?" she asked as she went in. She dropped her purse and the bag on the front table so she could light the good-luck candles she always burned upon first arrival and before they went to bed. One match, one flame for two candles, two wishes for safety and love. She still believed in wishes – and in hedging her bets.

He dropped a kiss on the back of her neck. "Not a liar, but, er, a strategist. And no, I really am a plant-killer." She turned just in time to see the mind-blowing grin that only she ever got to witness. He seemed fully returned to the new normal – also, he was already halfway up the stairs, saying, "I rather think I’ll have a quick bath, wash off the day."

"Do you want me to fix you supper?"

Waving a negative, he disappeared into the shadows of the upper corridor. A minute later, she could hear the bath running.

Her book in hand, she wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. In fact they’d done a major Tesco shop yesterday, so food and drink was everywhere, homey abundance practically falling off every shelf. She cut herself a portable hunk of Stilton; one very nice thing about living in England was the availability of good cheese, regardless of a certain ex-fiancé’s insults of her taste for the smelly stuff.

She nibbled on it as she went upstairs to change her clothes. Rupert had turned on their bedside lamp, which made their newly painted bedroom glow in softly shaded rose and blue. Brighter yellow spilled out of the en-suite bathroom, a splash of light to match the splash of water inside.

Peeking her head around, she saw a lovely sight: Rupert in the old-fashioned bathtub, arms draped over the sides, head back and eyes shut. Water lapped on his body, tiny waves caressing him like she suddenly wished she was doing. Yet the light pouring from the ceiling fixture revealed bruise-like circles of weariness under his eyes. She said, "Honey, I’ll come back in a few minutes to make sure you don’t fall asleep and drown yourself by accident."

"Thank you, darling, but I’m fine. I’ll be right out." Although he didn’t open his eyes, he smiled.

Obviously he needed comfort and coddling at the moment, not stress. "We’re going to take tonight off," she announced. "No work, just relaxing. Demon uprisings and informant problems can wait until tomorrow."

"Um-hm," he said, sinking deeper into the water, eyes still closed.

Changed into jeans and an old shirt she’d stolen from him, she went back downstairs. After putting together a nice reading supper – more Stilton, crackers, an apple– she settled herself with sustenance and book on the couch. "The Affair of the Pink Pearl" had just started, and she hoped that arrogant Tommy would realise that he was all wrong about the thief and his own methods.

The fictional Tuppence was interrogating a suspect and the code-named Tuppence was halfway through her apple when Rupert came down, his boots heavy on the stairs. Wearing that nice black shirt she’d bought him at Selfridges and quite well-fitting black jeans, he stopped in the arch between living room and hall so he could smile at her and say, "You look comfortable."

"I’m extremely comfortable, and I’m also improving my mind and eating well. Do you want to share my supper, or should I get up and get you something?"

"No, no. We’re both relaxing tonight – I’ll find something." His footsteps went into the kitchen, but in a moment he came back. "Darling, we’re, er, out of beer. I think I’ll go down the pub, have a swift half. But you stay there. I don’t want to disturb you."

"Are you sure, I –" However, he was already out the door, and it was a crucial moment in the mystery, and anyway he’d be right back. She returned to her book, only a little peeved at his abandonment of her, and a little troubled although she didn’t know why–

Until, at the end of the story when Tommy gloated about putting one over on Tuppence, it came to her. Rupert had been wearing boots, but he never wore shoes when they were in for the night, it was one of his things. More to the point, they’d bought six bottles of beer yesterday, all of which she could see clearly in her mind’s eye, sitting untouched on the top shelf in the fridge.

Stilton and cracker crumbs, apple core, and _Partners in Crime_ went flying as she leapt off the couch. He wouldn’t, she told herself. He _wouldn’t_ go off investigating without her. Wouldn’t dash into danger all alone, wouldn’t be that stupid.

But the empty space where their Saab should be in front of the house indicated quite clearly that he would.

***

Headlights flared in the rearview mirror, a splash of white so blinding that even if he tried, he couldn’t see his reflection.

Squinting against brightness ahead and behind him, Giles made the turn onto Tottenham Court Road.

The new direction didn’t help his vision. Not that he needed to see himself in the mirror, of course. He could feel the change, the return of the man he’d been – not just a shell between himself and the world, but a layered, tensile spiral of names and stories and shadows.

The first layer had slid back over him when Anya had leaned forward over that vile lunch, gesturing precisely while she made a point. "It’s important to control the flow of information, don’t you think? Isn’t that a spy thing to do?"

He had realised she was quite right; he couldn’t wait for someone else to blow his cover. It was the only way to hope to get out of this and retrieve his source. But at her enormous smile, her completely Anya beam of joy and calculation and focus, he also had realised he couldn’t let her know what he was planning. It was indeed vital to control the flow of information: keep her out of it, keep her safer that way.

Bright lights, ahead and behind him. He turned off on a side street before he reached Oxford Street, heading for a car park he’d always used when he was David Blackburn. For the moment, no car followed; the rearview now was blurred black, so that he could barely see his moving shadow. Names and shadows blurred together. He’d been David Blackburn...who else? James Sedgwick. Robert Gordon. Giles the school librarian. Ripper.

And now Tommy Beresford, for fuck’s sake. He found himself almost smiling for a second.

He pulled into the car park, finding a space right away. The central London congestion charge really was changing things, he thought; in the old days, he might have had to search for a while. He killed the engine, then stared straight ahead into the emptiness.

The second layer of the shell had snapped into place that afternoon when Roger Wyndam-Pryce had barked down the phone, "The Xet legend should be taken seriously, Giles – if you remember it rightly, that is. It’s too bad you didn’t steal that source-text when you took the others before the Council exploded, wouldn’t you say? Not that your pitiful efforts meant much in the end. We shouldn’t be surprised they don’t mean much now; pixies are more your level of expertise, aren’t they."

Bloody old man. But Wyndam-Pryce had a point: did he remember the legend rightly? Gillian Harkness hadn’t been much help, either. "Isn’t it something like, _The Xet means the rising time, when humankind will fall. The river-valley will go dry, but blood will run?_ Something like that. I never really studied this, never took it seriously. But if you like, I can ask for more help, search our own histories and group memory." She hadn’t sounded encouraging.

With the loss of the Council, he had to rely on himself. Wyndam-Pryce was right, of course: his efforts hadn’t meant much, might not mean much now. Yet he still had to try to do his duty, and he had to protect Anya from the mess he’d created.

After turning on the light, he checked over the few supplies he could bring: the specially prepared dagger, the stake, and a small token for his informant. He’d always brought his informants a little something, trade for trade. Perhaps even in the old days he had wished that he was a simple businessman. And partnered.

He stared at the dagger for a moment. That evening, lying in the cooling water, he’d kept his eyes closed when Anya spoke to him. He couldn’t look at her. Yes, he could give her a smile; whoever he was, whatever he was called, he loved her in the same way, painful and warm and deep. But if he looked at her, he might see the shadows and the names ripping at the delicate fabric that joined the two of them. Worse, he might see her own change, her retreat. God knew it was entirely possible for him to have put too much between them.

Not a liar but a strategist, he’d said. What a fucking fool he was.

After getting out of the car, he stowed his gear away: weapon in the back of his jeans, under his untucked shirt; stake up his sleeve; gift in his front pocket. Then he pulled out his cigarettes, lit himself a smoke with the lighter he’d had for years. The first drag burned in his lungs just right.

Then he started walking. It was just across Oxford Street and down Charing Cross, so he wouldn’t have to go very far. The streets were busy tonight, he noticed, and not just with people. A vampire limped along outside the entrance to the Tottenham Court Road; looked like one of the less prized workers in a Soho vamp-brothel. And Giles saw a couple of Nuyy demons slithering along the brick ahead of him. Going the same place he was, he reckoned, although he preferred to get there ahead of them. Hurrying his pace, he passed them, taking care not to breathe in their hunting stench. Yes, he certainly needed to get there first.

The small blue wooden door, set into brick, hadn’t changed. He took the time to breathe in one more lungful of smoke, pinch out the flame, crush the sparks under his boot. Then, with a muttered "Oh, sod it," he rapped twice on the top of the door and twice on the bottom. The door swung open.

From inside came a hum of demon voices, growls and purrs and sounds he still couldn’t identify. He crossed the threshold into the warm red glow of Nalph’s Mysterious Emporium, The Best for the Most Discerning Demon and Half-demon.

It was a full house tonight, the aisles and tables crowded with customers and goods, fangs and claws. In the centre of it all, perched on the glass counter was Nalph himself. He looked up, indigo lips stretching into a tooth-displaying smile. "Ah, if it isn’t the long-lost David! What is the password, my human friend?"

"Nalph, there is no password," he said, closing the door behind him.

Names and shadows, same as it ever was.

***

There were times that Anya still believed in vengeance. Not the Arashmaharr-approved, blood-and-guts-and-death type any more, but the human kind, where a stupid partner who did an exceedingly stupid thing was forced to suffer in untold hideous domestic ways for the crime of scaring the other partner.

"I’m sorry, but can you hurry?" she said, leaning forward so that her nose almost pressed the glass between the cab driver and herself.

"Can’t go faster than the traffic will bear, miss," the man said. He pointedly turned up his radio, which currently was broadcasting sports news to the uncaring world. Or at least she didn’t care who won the latest damn match at Lord’s.

Forcing herself back in her seat, she watched the lights of the Euston Road as they passed, slow blurs of white and dark, as she nervously wound her fingers in the bottom of Rupert’s old shirt. See, there was yet another reason to be furious. In her hurry to find him and make sure he was all right, she hadn’t even thought to change her clothes. She probably should be glad she’d remembered to put on shoes.

Stilton-flecked at-home wear was going to look really unprofessional when she walked into Nalph’s.

Rupert had to be there, she thought, even as the cab made a sharp turn and she collided with the door handle. She had checked the closest pubs to home, but neither Bradley at the Moon Under Water nor Jo at the Duke of Nowhere had seen him. While it was possible that Rupert had ventured off to speak to another of his contacts, for example Grittnak in Greenwich, she doubted it very much; also for example, Grittnak specialised not in creepy and ambiguous prophecies but in demonic insects and fungi and their practical applications. Which reminded her that he had been selling his own version of the Giles/Jenkins laceprig formula, and she needed to figure out how to send a multi-dimensional cease-and-desist letter.

As the cab took another corner, she grabbed her purse. It was heavier than usual, since she’d put a stake in there in case of random vampire attack, as well as their new MI5 mobile phone.

She hadn’t called their handler Zoe on this matter, although she’d considered it. What could she say? "Hi, this is ‘Tuppence,’ and ‘Tommy’ said he was going down to the pub except he didn’t, and I think he’s doing something incredibly dumb if espionage-oriented. Can I have backup while I look for him?" It just didn’t seem like a proper agent thing to do. Of course the person in their partnership who would actually _know_ about proper agent things to do wasn’t there to consult, because he was being an idiot. In further proof of his idiocy, he’d left his non-spy cell phone at home and she couldn’t call him.

Yes, there were definitely times that Anya still believed in vengeance.

Brakes screaming, the cab came to a halt. "Foyles," the driver said. "Eleven pound forty, please."

After Anya gave him the fare and an appropriate gratuity, she scrambled out onto the pavement. Oh look, there was Nuyy trail, a line of some nasty stuff along the sidewalk and a matching smear along the display window.

Big night at Nalph’s, then. Those pickled entrails would be selling like crazy.

She pressed her nerves inside, her hands clutching the soft, worn fabric of Rupert’s shirt. To keep him safe, she would walk into a crowded, dangerous demon shop and act like it didn’t bother her. She was a spy now, too.

The requisite raps on blue wood, and the door opened on noise and a stench that only Nuyy demons hunting a light snack could produce. Breathing through her mouth, Anya went into the Mysterious Emporium. There was no sign of Rupert, but no sign of Nalph either, which was unusual on such a busy night.

A second Mikh demon, lighter blue and far less impressive than the proprietor, hopped off the counter. "May I help you, human lady?"

"That’s no human, that’s Anyanka!" slurred a thick, muddy voice from near the bulletin board. Although she turned and gave him a Magic Box smile, she inwardly groaned. It was Pim, an earth-dweller from the dimension with four hundred and thirty-six names for dirt: a good-hearted demon as demons went, but not her type, as she’d expressed in several different ways over several different centuries. His cheery, demon-grog-soaked face fell when he got a good look at her, however, and he said, "By clod and by claw, you are human!"

"Yes, I am," she said. "You’re here for some fresh soil-mash, I take it?"

"The Best for the Most Discerning Demon, in or out of five hundred dimensions," he agreed. "But what are you doing here, traitor to demonkind?"

"I wouldn’t put it like that." Then, hastily turning to the Mikh: "I was hoping to speak to Nalph. I was here earlier today and left my business card – Anya Jenkins, of Giles and Jenkins, Investigations and Acquisitions?" When he inclined his head, hopping a little in inquiry, she pointed to the displayed card as evidence. "Could I speak to him? On business."

He said, "He’s with another human now. Wait here, and I’ll see if he’s free to talk to you." With a couple of bounds, he was over the counter and through the ‘beaded’ curtain into the back area. She’d never actually been past the public area of the shop.

Dropping the occasional fingertip of mud, Pim slid closer to her. She gave him a pleasant yet off-putting smile, then turned her attention rather desperately to the cards on display. Nalph was with another human now. It had to be Rupert – but what exactly was she going to say when or if she got back there? She didn’t even know if he was going by his real name or one of his cover names ... oh, this wasn’t good.

"What’s your business, then, Anyanka no longer?" Pim said into her ear.

She moved a little further away. "Investigations and Acquisitions! We research demon-history questions and find objects of desire." As she stepped back, she returned her gaze to the board. Cards for love potions, for human blood, for disaster and mayhem; names like Mairdom and Cluth the Gifted. Taking up most of the space in the centre was a huge, boldly lettered flyer for one Yeangelt (no service specified), with conveniently both a human phone number and a sigil-and-word combination to call him.

Yeangelt...wait. Could that be any relation to Ian Gold, or might the previous MI5 operative have misheard what really was being said? It was an 0207 number; she memorized it, lips moving silently. The sigil and word she also committed to memory, although she wasn’t very good at drawing and might not be able to replicate it –

"What kind of desire might you satisfy?" Pim said, far too close. He exposed stained brown choppers in a would-be seductive smile.

"Not sex, but thank you for asking." She edged away.

"No, no, you only have to reject me a couple hundred times before I get the message. This is a matter of business. Can you acquire me some good earth? Specifically, a cupful from the dead Hellmouth in California?" He licked his lips, leaving mud behind. "I hear it could sustain a demon like me for days, with the heart’s-blood and the hell-traces and the fire."

Hisses and screams and the flash of Rupert’s sword, terror and tears and blood. Repressing her shakes and her memories, she said, "I was in Sunnydale when it fell. I don’t think what’s left is fit for any demon."

"So you _are_ a traitor, human woman." Luckily he didn’t speak the accusation very loud, so that no other demons could hear, so that she wouldn’t be torn into shreds where she stood.

She held his gaze, then speaking as fast and sharp as she could, she said, "No, Pim. I think the earth there is poison. After all, the Hellmouth closed, didn’t it? It was a definite loss for demonkind. Might bring you bad luck at best, kill you at worst. Do you want to risk it?"

"Oh. Oh, well, that is a point," he said.

The curtain parted again, and the lesser Mikh appeared just in time. "Come with me, Anya. Nalph will see you now."

Sending one last fake smile to Pim, she hurried behind the counter. The Mikh hopped once, put a claw on her back, then pushed her through the doorway. The Ihioo babies’ skulls chattered as she went through, and she swallowed hard.

The private space of Nalph’s Mysterious Emporium was easily three times the size of the shop space, an earthen-and-concrete box sloping down toward the back. It was full of packages, wooden containers, glass jars filled with the exotic and, well, mysterious. Scents of blood and power swirled all around her, dark and light intermixed. She felt a brief quiver of envy – oh, what she could have done in the Magic Box with access to merchandise like this. Mostly, however, she felt terrified.

At the back of the huge space were three doors. The blue centre door was half-shut, so that she could see its Office sign. The other two doors opened onto dark tunnels. Before she could worry about what lay at the other ends of those long passages, the lesser Mikh pushed her across the room. "Nalph, here is the woman," he announced, as one last shove sent her into the office.

Rupert stood in the middle of the lantern-lit room, his hands fisted at his sides. Oh God, there was blood on his lower lip, his shirt had been clawed, there was more blood underneath–

Without turning around, Nalph growled, "How many is that, man?"

Cold, focussed, and a little scary despite the fact that he was clearly in trouble, her Rupert stared down at the demon. "That would be twelve."

"Three more, then, Rupert Giles, for each year you have traded with me under a false name. We must keep our accounts current." Then Nalph leapt. Blue claws out, he backhanded Rupert’s face twice and ripped across his stomach once.

Her man took the blows without flinching, even as Anya cried out, "No, don’t! Honey–"

Nalph didn’t turn around. "It is redress for double-dealing. Of all creatures, she who was Anyanka should remember what rightful vengeance is."

But she didn’t believe in vengeance any more, she thought. Not in the real thing.

***

It was done. Giles could let himself exhale through the pain – which could have been much worse, Nalph had gone easy on him – and turn to Anya. The second that the Mikh minion had said her name, a rope of terrified anger had banded around his chest and pulled tight. Even as Nalph had struck at him, his mind kept turning over the same phrases: what the sodding hell was she thinking, it wasn’t safe here, what the fuck was he supposed to do now –

But in a blur of fluttering shirt-tails and loose hair, she was with him. "Careful, darling," he got out, just as she threw his arms around him. The scratches on his stomach opened up at the impact, and he had to breathe himself through the sharp, flaring hurt.

As she shifted her clasp to a less painful area, she whispered, "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Fine." After he managed to unclench his jaw and slip an arm around her shoulder, he looked at Nalph. "Is honour satisfied?"

The demon had pulled up a Mikh-sized chair and sat down as if to watch a play. At the question, he shrugged. "You have come to me freely, you have spoken truth at last, you have accepted due punishment. My anger is appeased. But let me put a question to your partner. What did you know of your Giles’s lies, she who was once one of us?"

His knotted panic constricted his chest, almost snapping him in two. They hadn’t talked about this, hadn’t gotten their stories straight. He was meant to do this sort of thing on his own.

Anya said evenly, "I told you he was an ex-Watcher, remember? I didn’t know until today, after I met with you, that he had once used a false name to liaise with demons for the Council. But of course there is no more official Council of Watchers based in England, and he doesn’t work for them any more. He’s my partner, a reasonable man."

She’d said just enough, truth and lie intermixed, to make the cover work. God, she was going to be bloody good at the game. But just to make sure: "Anya had nothing to do with my past, Nalph. She’s my present and future. Good accounting would not make her responsible for any of my crimes committed before we were partnered."

"Oh, certainly. I’m a peaceable demon, and I ask only what is my due." Nalph groomed himself idly, straightening out a dreadlock or two with a blood-stained claw. "Besides, I always rather liked you, he who was once David."

"And I you, Nalph. I hope we may continue to, er, associate?"

"We shall see." Over his words, however, came a pounding from nearby– it was like the footsteps of a giant, shaking the earth all around them. The demon went a light fear-blue, and he hopped to his feet. "You both should leave. At once."

Before they could move, however, the office door crashed open. A bulky, hooded, unrecognizable figure posed itself in the doorway and said in a register just below bass, "Where is the tribute for my master, Nalph?" After a pause: "And who are these humans?"

"Investigators and traders, new to London," Nalph said. "And I already paid my tribute this morning, per prior arrangement." Anya’s arm slid around Giles’s stomach at that; he repressed another groan.

"We make new arrangements as we please, merchant," the figure said. It extended a pale, long-clawed hand into the light. "Tribute. And then a little more information on these humans, who are where they shouldn’t be."

"It’s bad business to make such changes without warning." Nalph made no move toward the desk behind him, nor did he seem inclined to barter with the creature. Nevertheless, he seemed far more nervous than Giles had ever seen him.

The creature thudded into the office, both hands now outstretched. "Tribute."

"No," Nalph said. But the claws of one hand dug convulsively into the back of the chair.

Perhaps it was time to intervene. Biting back a groan, Giles reached back to grasp his dagger and brought it into the lantern-light. At the same time he pushed Anya behind him. Ignoring her protest, he said, "I don’t believe Nalph wishes to trade with you at the moment – er, sorry, didn’t catch your name."

"Nor did I catch yours," the creature hissed. "And I wouldn’t meddle, human."

"I shouldn't call it meddling –" Concentrating, he pointed his dagger, then whispered the spell that he’d consulted about with Willow during their phone conversation, the one for just such an emergency. A line of white light ripped along the blade and off, flashing into the creature’s eyes; breath stopped, it stopped. Holding the magick steady, he said, "Nalph, what would you like to do with this, um, visitor?"

"You’re certainly a bundle of surprises this evening, Rupert Giles. If you could keep him there for just a bit –" He was already leaping toward a file cabinet. In three motions he got out a bag of powder, dug his claws into it, and threw a goodly portion in the creature’s face. There was no reaction, but Nalph smiled thinly. "Now let him go."

As he lowered the dagger, his cuts sent out one more wave of pain. Anya must have felt his shudder, for she whispered, "I’ll take care of those when we get home. Just hang on."

The creature trembled once all over, then blew out its held breath. Nalph said, "Now that you’ve been given your second tribute, tell your master that he must negotiate next time."

Patting itself absently, it nodded as if it felt what wasn’t there. "You’re wise to comply, Merchant Mikh. We’ll remember this well." After one last puzzled glance at Giles and Anya, it thudded out of the room. The three of them stood still as its footsteps pounded down the lefthand tunnel; glass jars along one wall rattled to mark its passage.

"‘Remembering’ is just what he’ll have trouble doing. That should buy time, which is always such a useful commodity," Nalph said. He closed the file drawer, then leaned back against it, his gaze darkest blue. "Tell me why you helped me."

Anya answered for them both, "We helped you because we know you, because we want to associate with you. Also, that guy seemed unpleasant and overly melodramatic."

"You have proven yourselves worthy enough of association, both in understanding the proper way of things and in demonstrating loyalty. Eventually." Nalph smiled. "And the messenger was indeed unpleasant and melodramatic. So, in recompense I will whisper a warning. Does the phrase ‘land’s death’ mean anything to you?"

Giles felt an odd thrill, as when one random word shot across synapses to blow up into a bright, fiery conclusion. Lambeth, ‘land’s death,’... but he said, "No, I haven’t heard it."

"In due time you will, Rupert Giles and Anya Jenkins. For London is changing, in ways both surface and deep. Take heed as you go." The demon’s voice dropped on the last words, and his gaze went to the concrete floor. Then he looked back up and said more normally, "I need to get back to my customers. Shall I escort you out?"

Giles didn’t know what burned more – the cuts on his bottom lip, the scratches under his shirt, or the look Anya threw at him before following Nalph. Sighing, he made his painful way after them both. He caught up to them at the appalling curtain of baby skulls, just in time to hear Nalph say, "You know, Anya, I am in fact interested in acquiring a Nri-encrusted cup, such as the one last sighted in Morocco."

"I _knew_ you were," she said brightly. "Call me, and I can get to sourcing!"

Pushing Giles through the chattering heads, Nalph said, "I think I will. And of course I do have your work number on display."

What with the revealing his (mostly) true identity and attendant nerves, Giles hadn’t had a chance yet to see the card she had left. One look at the bulletin board made him catch his breath.

As soon as he and Anya had said their goodbyes, gotten past the vampire who’d been far too intrigued by his bleeding mouth, and gone through the door, he said, "Did you see the flyer for Yeangelt?"

"Yes I did, and I thought the same thing. The number is memorized, and I’ve got a rough idea of the magicks used to summon him." Hair flying, she whirled around, then grabbed his upper arms. "So that’s all you have to say to me? ‘Did you see the flyer for Yeangelt?’"

A lingering flicker of his own anger at seeing her there made him say, instead of the apology she was waiting for, "No, that’s not all. Did you catch the resemblance of ‘land’s death’ to Lambeth?" At his words her nails dug into his skin, marking ten new points of pain. Before she could start shouting at him, he said, "Oh sod it, Anya, let’s not even begin. We shouldn’t argue in the street."

"Fine, fine. Where’s the car?"

"This way. Come on." He managed to catch hold of her hand and pull her away from the demon growls and stench of the Mysterious Emporium. Traffic on Charing Cross was still heavy, a night-bus belching out fumes as it passed, two drunks singing football songs as they reeled by, a pile of rags in a doorway which actually was a man sleeping rough. Transient pools of light and dark, safety and treachery, marked the pavement.

In one of those pools of darkness, he got his handkerchief out and pressed it to his still bleeding mouth. It stung, worse now than before. As they passed back into light, he caught Anya’s gaze on him. She took the handkerchief away, then examined the bright red already dotting the white cotton. "Rupert, this isn’t stopping. Does the Mikh’s claws have some kind of anti-clotting agent?"

"Yes. Part of an ancient alliance with blood-drinkers, I understand. But your basic salve should take care of it," he said. Although her fingers tightened on his, she said nothing – just kept staring at his blood. Her hair shadowed her face so that he couldn’t see, couldn’t read it. Not that he needed to. "Anya, I know. I know, I’m sorry, but that was, er, a scene that had to be played out. I had to tell him, and I had to accept his vengeance. He’s too good a source to let go."

Without answering him, she dropped his hand and re-folded the handkerchief to make a clean surface. Then gently, so gently, she staunched the wound again as best she could. He bent down a little, despite the scratches, to make it easier for her. Her eyes on her work, she said, "How old are you?"

What the bloody hell? "You know how old I am."

"Just answer me."

He leaned into the press of her hand, into the pain he deserved. "I’ll be fifty in January."

"Yes. Almost fifty, and you know every damn thing about everything – yet apparently you still don’t know how relationships work."

He deserved that too, but Christ it hurt more than his wounds. She took her hand away, stuffed the handkerchief into her own pocket, then headed off on her own for Oxford Street.

This was why he hadn’t wanted to look at her earlier, he thought, with a shudder that made his torn shirt flutter against his skin, made his cuts bleed even more. He couldn’t bear to see her walking away from him.

***

The door creaked as Rupert unlocked it and pushed it open for her, and Anya felt strangely grateful for the sound. She couldn’t stand silence any more.

He had gone completely quiet – like that frightening, don’t-touch-me-I’m-holding-in-too-much quiet of the previous winter – after their initial discussion of his bad partner behaviour. He’d led her to the car, he’d silently gotten into the driver’s seat despite her protests, and he’d driven them back to Islington without saying anything. He hadn’t commented when she’d called Zoe on their extremely cool new spy phone and given her the new information about the London threat. He hadn’t even turned on the CD player, which made her nervous, because he did love his harsh and aggressive music.

She looked at the candles on the entry table, ready to be lit, but she didn’t have the heart to perform her ritual. She hadn’t been able to bring him back from the silence like she usually did, because she was too torn between simmering rage and deep, horrible guilt. She knew that despite his words earlier, he wouldn’t have felt it necessary to go off and get himself sliced up if she hadn’t just blurted out his real name to Nalph that morning. And he was so sliced up.

She couldn’t make a wish when he was still bleeding.

The scattered remains of her interrupted supper were all over the floor in the living room. As she went in to pick up the trash, she glanced over at the answering machine. A red light was blinking. "Hey, somebody called while we were gone."

He followed her into the room, retrieved the message. A rich English voice barked out of the machine, "Giles? Roger Wyndam-Pryce. It’s important that you call me back. It’s... important. You have my number."

Before she could do it for him, he went back to the entry and picked up his briefcase; she could hear him try, and fail, to suppress his grunt of pain at the motion. After collecting his address book, he flipped through to the number and then made the call. She went into the kitchen with her hands full of book and apple core and crumbs, but from there she could hear more silence, then him leaving a brief message in return. Whatever Wyndam-Pryce wanted must not have been really a big deal.

"Honey –" But he was in the kitchen before she finished her sentence. Another groan as he reached up to get the bottle of Scotch and a tumbler, and she said, "What do you think you’re doing? How can you have a drink when your mouth is all bloody?"

"Very, very carefully." He splashed a hefty amount into his glass. Putting her hand on his back, she reached over and got herself a glass, then held it out for him. Although he raised his eyebrows, he poured her a significantly smaller portion.

When he took his first sip, she could see the blood on the glass, mingling with the traces of amber liquid. He shuddered, then took another sip. Still bleeding.

"Here. Let me get this shirt off you," she said. "Then come upstairs so I can fix you." He almost chuckled at that, she didn’t know why, but he let himself be turned around, let her unbutton the garment and shrug it off his shoulders. Like his drinking, she did it carefully – but she still got traces of blood on her hands. That’s what real vengeance did, she thought.

Glass of Scotch in one hand, his tattered shirt in the other, she made her way upstairs in the dark. She could hear him behind her, hear him stop at the foot of the stairs so he could take off his boots. He always took off his shoes when he was in for the night, it was one of his things.

That was when the tears started, hot pinpricks that hurt her eyes. He had left her but he’d come back, and he was sorely wounded, and this beautiful expensive shirt she’d bought on a very good sale was ruined, and he lied to her but he did understand that it was wrong, as wrong as vengeance, why hadn’t the book covered any of this – she had to gulp down some alcohol to make herself feel better and distract herself from crying.

Then she coughed for thirty seconds straight.

"For fuck’s sake, are you all right?" He caught up to her at their bedroom door. Reaching around with an audible wince, he flicked the switch so that the bedside lamp glowed on. Then he put a finger under her chin, lifting her face so he could examine it. "Darling, what happened?"

"The Scotch choked me," she sniffed, hoping he’d ascribe the fresh tears to overly enthusiastic liquor consumption, rather than to delayed trauma or the fact that he’d called her ‘darling’ for the first time since they’d started fighting. She hadn’t realised how much she counted now on being his darling.

He looked a little dubious, but he said, "Right. Well, be careful next time."

"Oh, you can tell me to be careful, after you just put yourself in danger – no, never mind. I want you to sit on the bed and wait for me while I get the salve and some bandages." When he seemed set to argue, she said, "Now. Don’t question me."

Once alone in the bathroom, she allowed herself one more little bout of tears and some less toxic sips of Scotch. After splashing water on her face and collecting herself, she also collected a towel, a roll of bandages and a tiny plaster for his mouth, and the healing balm she made.

When she went back out, he wasn’t on the bed where she’d told him to be. Instead, he was standing by their bedside table, messing around with a match and cursing under his breath. "Rupert, whatever are you doing?"

He glanced back over his shoulder, all shadows and silver in the light. "You always, er, light these candles when we’re in here." He smiled, even though the movement obviously hurt his lip. "Although I don’t know why it’s so important to you, you’ve never said. But since it is...."

"You’re trying to make me cry again, aren’t you?"

"Of course not, darling," he said, a little alarmed. "Is there some sort of problem if I light the candles? Some ritual disturbed?"

She dumped her armful of medical aids onto the bed and crossed to him. Putting one hand on his broad back and the other covering his hand with the match, she helped him strike it into fire. Together they put the flame to each wick; as the spark caught each one, she made her wish. Then she blew out the match. "Not a problem," she said.

"And, and why do we do this?" he said, finally sitting down on the edge of the bed as previously instructed.

"That’s for me to know and you to find out. Some day." She curled up next to him, after angling him so she could see all his wounds in the lamplight. There were eight long scratches on his stomach above the waist of his jeans, at least three of them quite deep. After opening the salve, she began to dab it along the cut line of the worst scratch. He drew in a harsh breath, but stayed still for her. The medicine did stop the bleeding.

When she got to the next to last scratch, he spoke. "I’m sorry for lying to you, Anya. So very sorry."

"And I’m very sorry for telling Nalph who you were without asking, and even more sorry for saying you were bad at relationships. That wasn’t fair." Stupid, stupid tears. Blinking hard, she concentrated on what was important, on him. His skin warmed under her hands; the candle flames on the table leapt higher.

"No. No, I deserved it." When she pressed too hard on the last scratch, he bit down on a groan, and his hand gripped her shoulder. But his words were deep and soft. "I’ve been alone most of my life, Anya, worked alone most of my life. Partnership won’t come easily to me, I’m afraid."

"Do you want me to lend you my book? Although it doesn’t seem to cover certain difficult aspects of our life together, I have to say."

His laugh broke in the middle. "Ow. Well, maybe I’ll reread the bloody thing, just to be on the safe side."

It only took her a moment to bandage him up, in case the scratches opened again. As she started on his mouth, caressing the salve onto his cut lip, he mumbled, "Anyway, though you shouldn’t have been there, you did extremely well. You’re a natural, Tuppence."

"Stop talking so I can fix you. But Tommy, I had no idea how stoic and spy-like you could be. Very sexy. Also, that new spell worked great."

"Um-hm." He brought his other hand up so that he was holding both her shoulders; then, as she tried to put on the plaster, his big, competent fingers started to massage. Those fingertips, so attuned to her, so skilled – "Dear Lord, you’re tense."

It was very difficult to tend to his wound when she was puddling onto the duvet in muscle-relaxed ecstasy, she thought. But she managed to finish, wipe her hands, and set aside her materials, saying with only a little moan, "Oh, that’s....oh, you’re good at that. But you’re supposed to be resting from your injuries."

His eyes smiled, even if his mouth didn’t curve, what with the plaster. "I thought I’d apologise to you first. See if I could figure out this relationship thing after all." One more probe into a knot high on her back, making her arch with pleasure. "Why don’t you get ready for bed, darling? I’ll be back in a second."

When he disappeared into the bathroom with his Scotch, she leapt for her nightwear. She had taken to sleeping in whatever pajama top went with the bottoms he wore. Of course the first time she did this, he’d frowned and explained that such a custom was ‘twee,’ or some other equivalent stupid British term. Not that she listened to him; she liked his silk against her skin almost as much as she liked him there. She took off her clothes and slid into the top, then took another drink of Scotch. It went down smoothly, a lick of fire like the candles she burned. She could get used to this.

Her battered man came out of the bathroom wearing the right pajama bottoms and carrying a folded bath sheet over his arm. Brows knitting together, he said, "Take off the nightshirt, Anya."

"A command is neither partner-like nor apologetic," she said, even as she pulled it over her head.

"Then I’ll, er, rephrase. If you’ll please take off the nightshirt, I’ll take care of your tension. In way of apology, of course." He threw back the duvet, then spread out the bathsheet for her. Oh. He had massage oil. And his eyes were smiling again, just for her.

She crawled onto the bed and positioned herself on the bathsheet, pillowing her head in her arms. Her eyes closed on the sight of the bedside candles, flames still leaping high. But: "You don’t need to, Rupert. I mean, even I wouldn’t make you have sex when you’re sorely wounded, and besides, we had very fine sex in the office this afternoon–"

"Darling, shut up." So she did.

There was a distinct grunt of pain as he climbed onto the bed, but she chose to overlook it for the moment. He straddled her hips – he was nicely flexible for a man his age – and then she could smell the oil as he poured it into his hands, hear the slickening whispers as he rubbed his hands together. Leaning forward, he drew a warm, smooth double line with his fingers, an experienced traverse over tensed muscles and the valley of her lower back. Then he went back over old ground. She moaned.

He paused on his travels, his palms rotating along her shoulder blades, easing out every fear and worry she’d had for days. She could feel herself loosen everywhere, feel her start to moisten between her legs. Her breasts swelled against the rough bath sheet, the tips almost unbearably sensitive. The light intensified against closed eyelids. As he slid down her sides and up around, she murmured, "Oh honey. Oh, you’re very good at this."

"Mmm. As a wise woman said tonight, I do know every damn thing about everything." Fingers tested, then unlocked a muscle group near her neck. As she whimpered, he said, "I have certifications in at least four types of massage. Perhaps we’ll try Rolfing next."

Under his hands she sank into the mattress, nothing but wetness and desire and the last remnants of bone, nothing but sparks in her shaded vision. He moved across her like ripples on water, and she lost track of time. When his hands dipped below her, a slick touch on her nipples, she liquified completely. But she managed to say, "You’re lying, aren’t you."

"Yes. But we spies call it strategy." One last smooth down familiar ground, and then his weight lifted off her. "Turn over, darling."

Muscles didn’t want to respond, but she managed to slide onto her back. Still straddling her, he was pouring more oil into his hands. Although his pajamas draped over a quite respectable erection, the light reflecting from lamp and candle-flames clearly showed new lines of hurt cut into his face. Even as she reached up to caress him, his hardness swelling under the silk, she said, "Honey, don’t do this if it’s painful."

"It’s my pleasure. Now lie still and be quiet." After smacking her hand away from him, he sent his slick fingers up her stomach, pressing into muscles she didn’t know she had. Then those big palms covered her breasts.

As if it were possible to stay still or quiet for that – she arched up into his touch, moaning. When he pinched her nipples, a sharp flare of desire travelled down. He said sternly, "No moving, Anya."

"First, you’re out of your damn mind." Her hands went to his forearms, caressing the bunched muscles there. And she scrutinized his face, seeing the pain he couldn’t hide from her. He wouldn’t be able to hide anything from her any more, she determined. "Second, you _are_ hurting. So we’re going to change the rules."

"Anya, stop."

She slid up to meet him, careful not to touch his bandaged stomach, and brushed against his jaw. He tasted of smoke and Scotch, heat and all the things she loved. After a kiss, she whispered, "Apologies go better with intercourse, Rupert."

"Um. Yes. There are certain, er, technical difficulties – "

The fingers of one of her hands travelled up his shoulders, along his neck, and settled at the nape of his neck. The other hand dipped below silk, so that her thumb could begin to sweep over the sweet, soft head of his cock –silk there too, wrapped over hardness. Shivering, breathing hard, he had to work to keep his balance. She said, "Partners like us can figure out a way through any problem."

With a minimum of discussion or disturbing his injuries, he lay down on his back. It was her turn to straddle him, to slide down and take him in. So hard, so deep – and she vowed to keep well away from his hurts. It was her turn to lean down over him, to link fingers with his as she started to move, rippled on him like water. So hard, so deep.

The lines of his face had sharpened into pleasure now, the shadows fading more each time their bodies met, each thrust and each tightening of the holds they had on each other.

And as the first wave hit her, she thought: God, yes, we’re a matched set.

***

Angling the umbrella to cover them more effectively, Giles shepherded Anya toward their house. The evening rain was really coming down hard, he thought, although it couldn’t hope to compete with his darling’s bell-like voice lifted in complaint.

"I hate it when the Tube’s that crowded and we have to stand. I wanted to sit with you, and I’d been looking forward to reading the Telegraph on the way home. It was the only thing keeping me going when I was negotiating with that idiot Iezz."

"But you got the cup for Nalph in the end, and at a bloody good price."

"Yes, but you know how I love to read the _Telegraph_ ’s obituary page. I hate to miss a day." Smiling, she put her head against his shoulder. "You did great today too, honey."

"I hardly think discovering all the people and places that Yeangelt isn’t counts as a successful work-day. And you can read the Torygraph over supper, I don’t mind." He looked down the street; a strange hire car with tinted windows was parked in front of the Bannisters’ house next door. Idly noting the plate number, he opened the gate for Anya.

She pulled him along their gravelled walk. "Honey, get serious. _Junkyard Wars_ is on tonight."

"Oh for fuck’s sake. I can’t believe you like that programme." He handed her the umbrella, then fished around for his keys. As he unlocked the door, he said, "You probably like those monster trucks too, don’t you."

"Yes! The way the very large machines bash against each other – it’s highly entertaining." She reached up to kiss him, careful of his still healing mouth; it had only been two days, after all. After a second butterfly-brush against his lips, she said, "Why do you ask?"

"Because, darling, I inevitably fall in love with women who like monster trucks. Some sort of vengeance, I believe." Taking back the umbrella, he said, "In you go."

After he dumped the wet umbrella in the requisite container, he headed for the phone. He’d been trying to reach Roger Wyndam-Pryce for two days, but no luck yet; he’d try one more time, then give it up as a bad job. Still, seemed odd to him.

Anya stayed in the entry to do her mysterious ritual. From his vantage point he could see her get out the match, strike it into flame. Before she could light the candles, however, the doorbell rang. "I’ll get it. You finish that," he said.

After he opened the door, he stopped short; the dripping, unshaven man on the threshold was perhaps the last person he’d expected to see. "Wesley! Er, hello – "

"Hello, Giles." That soft voice didn’t sound like the young prat he’d known in Sunnydale, but it was unmistakably Wesley Wyndam-Pryce on their doorstep.

"Who is it?" Anya poked her head around his shoulder, smiled at their visitor. "Oh, hi there! Can we help you?"

"Yes, actually, you could. I was wondering what the fuck you did to my father."

And Giles suddenly realised that Wesley was carrying a gun. One pointed at them, in fact.

[[The story will be continued in "Death in a White Tie."


End file.
